2011 Voyage

The Centre is beginning an exciting new phase of Global Whale Research with the purchase of an ice capable research ship!

Photo by Johnny Bivera/Grant Wilson

The Whale Song will allow the Centre’s scientists to explore areas never before examined for cetaceans. The Centre aims to identify areas critical to cetacean biology in order to guide human development before these majestic animals and their habitats are lost forever through our ever expanding need for food and energy.

Our first voyage, January to March 2011, will take Whale Song from Cape Town to Fremantle, exploring historically heavily whaled areas south of Madagascar and across the Sub Tropical Convergence to Fremantle, Western Australia. No funding is being sought for this delivery voyage and the research team will take the ultimate “busmans’ holiday” while travelling through one of the planets’ last great wilderness areas!

Collaborating blue whale scientists Professor Rob McCauley, Dr. Peter Gill and Dr. Benjamin Kahn will join the voyage as we observe the mysterious and rich convergence area between the cold southern ocean and the warm Indian Ocean, summer home to the globe wandering pygmy blue whales.

Pygmy blue whales and their slightly larger cousins Antarctic blue whales have evolved the loudest calls of any animal on the planet so that, when coupled with their ability to swim hundreds of kilometres per day, they are able to communicate rich feeding and breeding areas to each other no matter how far apart they are. As the world oceans become noisier, are blue whales able to recover from near extinction at the hands of the whaling fleets?

Join the Whale Song on her next voyage and help our team with the research click here